When You Want a Bigger Kitchen

Posted Monday, 27 June 2016

Big kitchens are perfect for the modern family, are an entertainer's dream and they also add value to your home. So what are you waiting for? After a few careful considerations, it is easy to redesign your living space and improve the flow of the house. Open plan kitchens with islands are attractive to many buyers as they work well with the demands of modern family life, allowing for cooking eating and working in the same space, meaning more time spent together. Creating larger more open living spaces will often make the property feel bigger and more spacious.

First off, you will need to consider whether you wish to extend outwards of your existing floor plan, or simply redesign the surrounding spaces to acheive a larger kitchen area within your home. Extending the kitchen is also a great opportunity to create more indoor / outdoor flow by adding external doors that open out onto a patio or deck.

Either way, for a project of this size, it is wise to call in the professionals who will be able to work through each stage of design, planning and construction with you.

Adding external patio doors to your kitchen brings the outdoors in and offers further options for dining areas.

An external kitchen extension will require you to obtain a written building consent authority from your local council before the work starts and the plans and specifications will need to comply with Building Code regulations. Your project manager can assist you in this process, and as there is a lot of information that the council requires, having someone with experience in building consents can save you a lot of time.

Creating more space by ‘knocking through’ - removing the wall adjoining a dining room or lounge to create an open plan kitchen area, will also require building consent. Some internal walls are relatively straightforward to remove as they just divide up the interior space and do not form part of the structure of the house. Where it gets more complicated and costly is if the wall is load-bearing as you will need to consult a structural engineer, and possibly install an I-beam which will act as a support instead of the wall.

Open plan kitchens with islands allow for more useable space, whether for food preparation, socialising or dining.

Whichever option you decide, having an experienced project manager to oversee the project and complete all of the planning and regulation work makes your renovation a stress free process. Attempting to go it alone and do the alterations yourself could be an expensive mistake. By choosing to work with a licensed renovation builder you can sit back and watch your dreams come to life and enjoy the new living space knowing that it is signed off and certified.